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U.S Park Police officers arrest a group of environmental activists outside the White House in Washington, Monday, Aug. 22, 2011, during a civil disobedience campaign against a proposed oil pipeline that would run from Canada to the U.S. Gulf Coast. The protesters want President Barack Obama to deny a permit for the 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline that would take oil extracted from tar sands in Alberta, Canada, and carry it through a pipeline cutting across Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas to refineries in Houston and Port Arthur, Texas. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Kells Hetherington

NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The $13 billion Keystone XL Pipeline cleared a key bureaucratic hurdle on Friday even as environmental groups vowed to continue fighting the project.

The U.S. State Department released its final Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL Pipeline to bring fossil fuel from the Canadian oil sands to the U.S.

State Department official Kerri-Ann Jones said the report concludes there would be “no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed pipeline corridor,” according to a transcript of a press conference.

“However, with that statement, there are a lot of follow-on descriptions as to steps that the applicant is required to take and has agreed to take in terms of complying with all applicable laws and regulations,” said Jones, assistant secretary for State Department’s Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs.

What gives these people standing to interfere with every activity the private sector and the government undertake? Clearly they are in league with each other, so perhaps they should be investigated under RICO for illegal conspiracy to restrict interstate commerce.

Eric

The radical environmentalists who oppose fossil fuel production of all forms in all cases must be FORCED to answer their protestations with viable alternatives or they need to shut up. It’s apparent from the pictures and provided names that here aren’t many engineers and scientists in the anti-energy environmental movement. Margot Kidder was hauled away yesterday. WTH is her qualification to pose this project and recommend alternatives? Passion?